Shakespeare in Eighteenth-Century Italy

Lucia Nigri* “I have translated from the English”. Shakespeare in Eighteenth-Century Italy Abstract In eighteenth-century Italy negative responses to Shakespeare’s plays are not to be found exclusively in matters of aesthetics, but in the country’s political and cultural subordination to France. It is not surprising, then, that a new strand in the reception of Shakespeare in Italy could only really begin when the death of Voltaire (1778) and the geographical redefinition of part of the central Europe encouraged Italian intellectuals to reconsider France’s role as a ‘necessary’ cultural(-historical) mediator. The robust reappraisal of Shakespeare that took place in the last two decades of the century was indeed deeply involved with the different responses that were prompted by the socio-political context and the gradual shattering of libertarian ideals. In this context, the work of an unconventional translator, Giustina Renier Michiel, definitively hustled the gradual reappraisal of Shakespeare’s plays in Italy. Her translations of specific Shakespearean plays are the repositories of ideological, political, and social messages sent by a Venetian woman to her fellow- citizens struggling to position themselves in a new geographical and political panorama. Keywords: Eighteenth-century Italy; France; Shakespeare; translation; Venice; crisis; politics; Giustina Renier Michiel Eighteenth-century relations between the Italian States and the national French State were complex and changeable. France represented more than a simple aesthetic model: its influence extended to religious, socio-political, and cultural issues. It provided the leading voice in the European En- lightenment and, after 1789, its Revolution inspired and inflamed political hopes abroad. Even though those hopes gave way to disenchantment with the rise of Napoleon, France proved a catalyst and co-protagonist of cultural and ideological dialogues on national identity and nationhood. Arguably, the French ascendancy provoked the construction (and, equally, de-construction) of a politically-oriented ‘Shakespearean narrative’ in late eighteenth-century Italy. After mixed fortunes, mostly depending on the Italian * University of Salford, Manchester – [email protected] © SKENÈ Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies 5:1 (2019), 45-64 http://www.skenejournal.it 46 SilviaLucia Bigliazzi Nigri response to Voltaire, Shakespeare established himself as the symbol of a na- tion that Italy could eventually oppose to France. It is not coincidental that at the turn of the century, in a cultural milieu torn between a wish both to adhere to and to oppose the Napoleonic project, Giustina Renier Mi- chiel produced a peculiar translation of Shakespeare in which its avowed educational value was, in fact, secondary to its political intentions. At that moment in Italian history, an atmosphere of disillusion provoked by the outcomes of the revolutionary aspirations favoured an interest in Shake- speare precisely in terms of a political and intellectual reaction. Renier Michiel’s belonging to an aristocratic and intellectual class internally divid- ed between contrary positions, moreover, is emblematic of this crisis and cannot be separated from her choice of carrying out that translation, even aside from the intrinsic value of this work and its contribution to the affir- mation of women in the intellectual panorama. Why her choice was so daring becomes clear when it is set against the eighteenth-century history of Shakespeare’s reception in Italy. As we know, his reputation was generally negative, especially in the first half of the century. In Italy, Shakespeare’s work registered an almost unanimous adverse reaction, and even when the atmosphere began to change from the 1770s onwards that unenthusiastic view was hardly eradicated. Scattered examples taken at random across the century confirm this widespread re- sistance: in 1735, for instance, Francesco Algarotti criticized Shakespeare for the “faults innumerable and thoughts inimitable” contained in his plays (qtd in Graf 1911: 316). Only three years later, in Réflexions historiques et critiques sur les differens théâtres de l’Europe, Luigi Riccoboni, in what looked like a sociological study of the mental and moral qualities distinctive to the English people, reiterated that Les Poëtes Dramatiques Anglois ont ensanglanté la Scène au-delà de l’i- magination, j’en donnerai deux seuls exemples. La Tragédie, qui a pour ti- tre Hamlet, a cinq Acteurs principaux, qui pendant l’action meurent tous de mort violente. Dans la Tragédie qu’on appelle Le More de Venise, entre autre chose le More transporté de jalousie va trouver la femme qui est dans son lit éveillée, il parle avec elle, & après plusieurs combats entre l’amour & la colere, il prend la résolution de se venger, & l’étrangle aux yeux des Spec- tateurs. (Riccoboni 1738: 164-5)1 [The English dramatic poets have covered the stage in blood beyond be- lief. I will only give you two examples. The tragedy entitledHamlet has five protagonists who all die a violent death during the action. In the tragedy entitled The Moor of Venice, among other things, the Moor, seized by jeal- ousy, goes to his wife, who is awake in bed, speaks to her, and, torn be- 1 All translations are mine. Onstage/OffstageShakespeare in Eighteenth-Century (Mis)Recognitions Italy in The Winter’s Tale 47 tween love and anger, resolves to be revenged, and strangles her before the spectators.] In a letter to the same Algarotti dated 30 January 1760 Agostino Paradisi claimed that in Shakespeare’s work “the defects are too great and too nu- merous” (qtd in Collison-Morley 1916: 24). As late as the 1780s, Shakespeare was even awarded the epithet of “bestial, though sometimes sublime” in Saverio Bettinelli’s Dialoghi sopra il Teatro Moderno (“quel bestiale talor sublime”; 1788: 8). His inclination for horrors was generally condemned; equally, his disrespect for the so-called Aristotelian units was clearly at odds with neoclassical poetics. Similar critiques were voiced persistently by, among others, Pietro Napoli-Signorelli’s Storia Critica de’ Teatri Antichi e Moderni (1777) and Giovanni de Gamerra’s Osservazioni sullo Spettacolo in generale (1786) (see Collison-Morley 1916: 25, 68). And yet the reasons for this negative response were not exclusively aesthetic, nor were they confined only to the Italian taste. As noted above, France’s cultural prestige in Europe was largely responsible for this reaction. French intellectuals dictated literary tastes, circulated foreign works, commented upon them, and they included in their transmission a strong critical narrative. Promoter of the ideals of liberty, equality, and humanitar- ianism – values which would eventually become key rallying cries of the Revolution – France also acquired an intellectual leadership which creat- ed consensus abroad and further reinforced its own image of cultural and political power. In this context, Voltaire’s treatment of Shakespeare quick- ly became authoritative and set the standard in criticism for decades. It can even be argued that Shakespeare’s reception in Italy was, at least until the turn of the century, largely dependent on one’s attitude towards Voltaire. Voltaire’s vehement devaluation of Shakespeare’s work marked his critical statements (Willems 2010: especially 455-65). The most famous attacks were contained in the eighteenth of his Lettres Philosophiques (1734; Sur la tragédie), a work which was otherwise inclined to cast a positive light on many aspects of English culture. Voltaire resided in England from 1726 to 1729, and his writings soon met with success on British soil, which he re- paid with an equal show of appreciation. As Gustave Lanson details in his commentary on Letter Eighteen, Voltaire’s negative judgment on Shake- speare built on a vocal opinion in England supported by eminent figures such as Thomas Rymer and John Dryden. Indeed, their negative commen- taries might have been the direct source for Voltaire’s own virulent cri- tique, including the definition of Shakespeare’s tragedies as “monstrous farces” – a possible borrowing from Rhymer (Voltaire 1917: 79; 91n6; see also Lombardo 1997: 455). Famously in that same letter, Voltaire tolled the bell for Shakespeare’s reputation, contemptuously pegging him as “un génie 48 SilviaLucia Bigliazzi Nigri plein de force et de fécondité, de naturel et de sublime, sans la moindre étincelle de bon goût, et sans la moindre connaissance des règles” (“a geni- us full of strength and fertility, of the natural and the sublime, without one slightest inkling of good taste, and without the least knowledge of rules”; Voltaire 1917: 79). During the September 1726-February 1729 theatre seasons, when Vol- taire resided in London, Hamlet and Julius Caesar were staged once and three times, respectively, while Othello was acted five times (Voltaire 1917: 92-5). Socially active, he might have had occasion to see them performed. Certainly, he both commented and worked on them. In his Letter Eight- een, he ironically pointed out the unbearable incongruity and unlikelihood of those plays: “dans la Tragédie du More de Venise”, which he conceded to be a “pièce très-touchante”, he observed that “un mari étangle sa femme sur le théatre, & quand la pauvre femme est étanglée elle s’écries qu’elle meurt très-injustement” (“in the tragedy of the Moor of Venice, a very touch- ing piece, a husband strangles his wife on stage, and when the poor woman has been strangled she cries that she is dying very unjustly”; Voltaire 1917: 80). “[I]n Hamlet”, instead, “dans Hamlet, des Fossoieurs creusent une fosse en bûvant, en chantant des vaudevilles, & en faisant sur les têtes de mort qu’ils rencontrent, des plaisanteries convenables à gens de leur méti- er” (“some gravediggers dig a pit while drinking and singing vaudevilles, and cracking jokes, appropriate to those doing their job, on the skulls of the dead they come across”; ibid.). Similarly, in Julius Caesar he found fault with “les plaisanteries des cordonniers et des savetiers Romains introduits sur la scène avec Brutus & Cassius” (“the Roman cobblers’ and showmak- ers’ jokes introduced on stage with Brutus and Cassius”; ibid.: 80-1).

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